


The Golden Hours

by Saucery



Category: Merlin (TV), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Peter Pan Fusion, Childhood, Crossover, Fantasy, First Kiss, Growing Up, Innocence, M/M, Sweet, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1894680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two boys share a moment of magic and mayhem. Arthur is the rather broody heir of Pendragon Holdings, and Merlin is his mysterious visitor from the second star to the right. Thimbles are exchanged and promises made! A Merlin/Peter Pan crossover for all ages!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golden Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another old story of mine that I am re-posting! The title is based on the following Barrie quote: "You have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by."

* * *

 

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Arthur knew was this. One day when he was three years old, he was playing in the garden, waving a twig about in lieu of a sword. He fell, bruised himself, and began to cry. He must have looked rather pitiful, for Mr. Pendragon pulled him up by the elbow and said, in his sternest voice, "Stop crying. Men don't cry. Remember, you are a man in the making." This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Arthur knew that he must grow up. He must, one day, become a man. Childhood is never the beginning of a beginning; childhood is the beginning of the end.

The Pendragons were a glorious family, by all accounts. Noble and wealthy and reticent in that particular way that suggested an innate - if not self- conscious - superiority. Their house crouched like a great and very pensive gargoyle in the midst of a leafy street in Knightsbridge, surrounded by similarly imposing buildings that, nonetheless, seemed lesser creatures by comparison. Mr. Pendragon (whose Christian name was Uther, not that anyone dared to call him by it), was a banker and the illustrious owner of Pendragon Holdings, among whose clients were aristocrats and royal families from around the world - including Great Britain, of course. Many a count or a duke or a pampered heiress had had tea in the lavishly appointed office that Mr. Pendragon kept in his home; indeed, so long did he stay in his office that he rarely ventured to any other part of the house, and sometimes, it passed that he only ever saw his children at dinner, during which they had to straighten their shoulders and display the utmost respect and decorum, or risk not having dinner at all.

First among the Pendragon children was Arthur, the eldest son who had had bred into him the very superiority his father embodied. Arthur was a solemn boy, upon whose adolescent shoulders rested the weight of a heavy inheritance - not only an inheritance of the monetary kind, but an inheritance of _responsibility_ , of good behavior and right conduct. If he had a certain flair for swordplay and silly adventures involving flights of (very manly) imagination, that side of himself was one that he kept well-hidden, as one might keep hidden a tiny little firefly in a tight-lidded jar.

The second child was Morgana, or Morgie, much-beloved to Mr. Pendragon even though she was not, by blood, his daughter. She was instead the daughter of a close friend of Mr. Pendragon's - a major shareholder and partner of yore - who had passed away when Morgana was very young. Mr. Pendragon had immediately adopted her. Despite his natural tendency to discipline his children in favor of showing them affection, he was known to bring back from his travels girlish and fanciful things, such as dolls and ribbons, that he then bestowed upon Morgana in an awkward way. ('Awkward,' in the sense that he quickly escaped to his office before she could give him - in all his stiff-backed terror - one of her alarmingly sweet hugs.) From Morgana, Mr. Pendragon could tolerate a trifle more disobedience than he could from his son; perhaps for that reason, Arthur never truly got along with Morgana, and Morgana, in turn, took every available opportunity to tease Arthur for his bad humor.

The third child in the Pendragon household was not a Pendragon at all, neither by blood nor by adoption. Her name was Gwen, and she was a mousy little thing that lived below-stairs with her father, the footman, who doted on her and often envied Mr. Pendragon his ability to buy Morgana the fineries that he, as a footman, could never acquire for Gwen. But Gwen was not one to want fineries, in any case; she was the sort that thought friendship a far greater treasure, and Morgana was her greatest treasure of all. Morgana, in turn, cherished Gwen's honest, maidenly companionship - and had, after performing a very convincing drama about being a lonely orphan in desperate need of a friend - managed to convince Mr. Pendragon to make Gwen her playmate. As such, it was not uncommon for Gwen to be permitted to join them for dinner, albeit in much plainer clothes, or for Gwen to spend the occasional night giggling and whispering in Morgana's room. Arthur rather thought that girls grew sillier when they were put together, like daisies grew sillier when strung together in daisy chains. Whenever Gwen was playing with Morgana, Arthur would slink away to brood manfully and to reflect upon the sad state of affairs that was his life.

There was one last person who lived with the Pendragons, and he was very dear to them all. He was Gaius, the nursemaid-cum-butler that had all but raised the Pendragon children. He was crotchety and strange and had a left eyebrow that was perpetually raised, but he was also more soft-hearted than a thousand candied pears. ("A candied _square_ ," Morgana called him, affectionately.) Indeed, so devoted was Gaius to the Pendragon family, and to Mr. Pendragon in particular, that among the business associates that frequented the house, he was known as the honorary Mrs. Pendragon. Nobody would have said this aloud, of course, on pain of death (by Pendragon glare); but it was common knowledge that after his wife's death, Mr. Pendragon had shown neither more trust nor more affection for anyone than he had for Gaius himself. True, Mr. Pendragon's expressions of affection came only in the form of implacable orders and grudging gratitude, but Gaius had developed an uncanny ability to read his surly master's moods. It was not unusual to see Gaius, with his perpetually-raised eyebrow, glowing joyfully at what seemed - to guests that did not yet know Mr. Pendragon - a very thorny commentary on Gaius's work.

Such was the Pendragon house. And Arthur, as the only heir to Pendragon Holdings, was perhaps the loneliest Pendragon of all. It occurred to him that his father was lonely, too, but Mr. Pendragon was a _man_ , a man with business to occupy him when friends and family failed. As he neared the age of fifteen - which is when this story is set - Arthur became increasingly aware of how important it was to become a man. Men, Arthur knew after having observed his father, needed work to keep them sane. Boys were not trusted with work; therefore, if Arthur wanted anything at all to furnish the barren solitude of his life, he had to become a man as soon as possible and be given sufficient work to occupy his mind. As it was, Arthur occupied himself with his studies (at which he was very good), with his athletics (at which he was even better), and with his brooding (at which he was best of all).

And so it happened that, one night, Arthur was brooding as the clock struck twelve. The murmurs and giggles from the neighboring room - Morgana's - had long faded, and Arthur reminded himself that it was dishonorable for a man to envy the bosom-friendship of girls - or to deplore the fact that, as a teenager, he had been deported from the nursery that was now the girls' domain alone. It was shameful to want to go back to the _nursery_ , of all things, and even that, just for company. It wasn't like Arthur didn't have company. He did have friends, though none were as honest with him as Gwen was with Morgana; at Eton, most of his classmates were either pink- faced sycophants who cared more for the Pendragon name than they did for Arthur, or pale-faced worms that slithered quickly out of sight, as if the Pendragon heir were a bird of prey in disguise.

No. Not friends, then. Not really. It wasn't that Arthur needed a friend; he was a man, after all, and men didn't need anything but the righteousness of their conduct and the clarity of their consciences. Or so Mr. Pendragon said. ( _Liar_ , Arthur thought whenever he was feeling uncharitable. _You have Gaius_.) But Arthur wasn't feeling uncharitable tonight; he was enjoying the heroic martyrdom of his loneliness, and was imagining - not that he'd ever admit it to anyone else - that he was the solitary prince of a distant land, a prince of golden character and impeccable record, that would soon win the devotion of his kingdom and therefore the companionship of all within it. There would be no more loneliness, then. When he ran Pendragon Holdings, Arthur vowed, he would win the devotion of his workers in a similar fashion. He would be both just and gentle; unlike his father, Arthur did not believe that justice and gentleness were mutually opposed.

Yes, that was right. Arthur would temper his father's more draconian punishments and would encourage greater cooperation between the management levels and those below. Transparency; accountability; the restoration of humanity to corporate culture. These things, Arthur would achieve. He even had the fanciful idea, in the back of his mind, that he might one day put a Round Table in the boardroom - that he might build such a culture of equality and mutual respect within the company that he could gather the best minds around him and allow them to speak for themselves. Father was right about the importance of authority, of course, but Arthur was beginning to suspect that authority wasn't authority at all if people didn't freely choose to obey it.

Such thoughts would probably be sacrilege, if voiced in the presence of Mr. Pendragon. And so Arthur kept them close, as close to him as a hand of Aces at a terribly important card game. One day, he hoped to show his father the cards he held. But he would have to wait for that. He'd have to become a man, first. He was only fifteen, as it was; there were a few years still before he reached the age of majority.

Bemoaning his youth once more, Arthur grumbled, turned over in his bed -

\- and froze.

A pair of eyes was staring at him.

A pair of gleaming, sea-dark, attentive eyes.

For a beat of silence, Arthur had the incredulous thought that one of his father's business rivals had finally sent an agent to steal their documents - or, slightly less terrifying, that a crime syndicate had sent an operative to kidnap Arthur and demand a ransom for him. (Arthur realized that he was far less concerned about his own personal safety than he was for the safety of the Pendragon documents. He felt a moment of reflexive pride for that.) But then, just as Arthur was about to shout - to summon the useless guards at the gate, or to call Gaius for help - a hand clamped down on his mouth.

A very _dirty_ hand.

"Mmph!" said Arthur, indignantly.

"Shush," whispered a voice, equally indignantly. "No need to cause a stir, you idiot."

Arthur blinked. Firstly - idiot? And secondly - _idiot_? Did this person not know that he was Arthur Pendragon, top scorer in the national exams and about as far a thing as there was from an idiot? Obviously, these crime syndicates sent filthy, ignorant loons to do their kidnappings. The hand over Arthur's mouth was grassy and sweaty and smelled of water and sun. It smelled like a summer forest rather than an autumn city, which was what London was, right now. _Definitely_ a loon. He probably wandered the public parks all day, and was hired to do this for a bottle of grog. Very clever, really, hiring a homeless person; it would be that much harder to trace the syndicate.

Except that, unexpectedly, owner of the voice sounded very young. "Where is it?" A sharp glint in the dark made Arthur flinch, and sure enough, there was a dagger pressed to his throat at the next second. "Tell me when I lift my hand. And don't you dare scream."

Not a kidnapper, then; he was after the documents. Arthur didn't care about the knife. If this was the sort of coward he was dealing with, he wouldn't cave at all. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied as blandly as he could, the moment the hand lifted away.

"Don't lie to me!" The boy - it was a boy, not a man, wasn't it? - insisted. "I know you hid it somewhere. You took it from me, you thief!"

The audacity of this knave! "Now, look here." Arthur sat up and jabbed a finger at what, in the dark, must've been the other boy's chest. That - what - were those _leaves_ his finger brushed? What on earth was the buffoon wearing? "You're the one that crept into my house. I couldn't have stolen anything from you."

"But you did," the rascal continued, mulishly. "It's not like my shadow enjoys being dragged around behind me, but it's never left me before."

"Your." Arthur blinked again. "Your what?" "My shadow, you prat. You stole it from me."

"I didn't steal anything from you." Shadow. As in. Assistant? He had an accomplice? No, that couldn't be - one wouldn't normally call an accomplice an 'it,' now, would one? But he couldn't mean a real shadow, surely. Who an earth could - or would - steal a shadow? This tresspasser, whoever he was, must be drugged out of his mind. "You're high on something, aren't you?" Arthur accused, realizing that the knife had been put away and that this drugged lunatic obviously couldn't even be bothered threatening him properly. He couldn't be from a business rival or a crime syndicate, then; he must, very simply, be a bum. "What are you on?"

"Dragon dust," the boy said, and moved away from the bed. "Why? What are _you_ on, that you're so solidly pinned to the ground?"

"I walk on the ground," Arthur replied, wondering why he wasn't already calling for help, and was instead having an insane conversation with an insane intruder who apparently thought that Arthur was some species of pathetic butterfly pinned to a lepidopterist's board. "I'm not pinned to it."

"Yes, you are." There were sounds of shuffling as the interloper roamed around the room - searching for his shadow, it seemed. "You know, it's your fault I entered your house, anyway."

"It's _my_ fault?"

"You're the most miserable boy I've ever seen. It's actually funny, watching you. The way you growl and sulk and always wear a sour face, like the pirates stole your treasure. I started coming over to watch you every night. You're hilarious. But last night, you left the window open - and I flew in. And then my shadow disappeared."

"You're not making any sense." Arthur could feel a headache coming on. He'd never been called miserable and hilarious and an idiot and a prat and a thief - not by anyone, ever, let alone all at once and in such quick succession. "First - wait, you've been _watching_ me?" The thought was disconcerting. And... strange, in quite another way that Arthur couldn't quite put a finger on. And he definitely would have to report this to the police.

"Well, of course I was watching you. There aren't very many interesting things, this side of the sky. But I still come down here, from time to time. Just in case there's something new."

"Down here from where? Another planet?" Arthur couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"No," answered the boy, without any hint of sarcasm at all. "A star. Second to the right, and straight on till morning."

"I see." Arthur had to figure out what to do with this crackpot; he didn't seem malicious, despite the dagger that he'd briefly flashed. He'd put it away right quickly, which meant that he hadn't meant to use it, after all - that, and there was just something... not angry. About this boy. He'd seemed angry, at the start, but it was like the anger of a young child; it didn't have much staying power.

_Perhaps I'll keep chatting to him. Lull him into a sense of security. Then I'll tackle him to the floor, wrest his dagger from him, and call for the guards. They'll hold him down until the police get here, and when they do, they'll take the sod back to whichever mental institution he escaped from._

"I swear upon my honor," Arthur continued, smoothly, "that I didn't steal your shadow. Maybe it got stuck somewhere. And if you're really looking for it, you might as well open the curtains. Let in some light. You'll only be able to see it in the light, won't you?"

The boy turned to stare at him. Or at least, Arthur presumed the fellow was staring at him, since the elongated outline of his body had turned towards Arthur in the dark. "You know," he said, slowly, "you're right. I forgot that you need light to see your shadow, here."

"What, you don't need light to see shadows, where you live? On the - the star?"

"'Course not. My eyes work differently, there. I go all golden-eyed when it turns dark. Like a cat. I can see almost everything."

Like a - _cat_?

Arthur felt a sudden urge to snicker. He contained it, of course; it would be inappropriate in such a situation. And cruel, besides, to laugh at a lunatic.

Still, this was. This was rather entertaining. Arthur wasn't sure he could recall having had such a nonsensical exchange of words with anyone, not in his entire life, not even as a five-year-old. Arthur couldn't predict anything this boy was going to say; it was like a game of wits, almost, except that this poor fool didn't have any. "The curtains, then," Arthur said, waving lazily at the window. "Open them. I want to see you, too. You've been seeing me, haven't you? Fair's fair."

"I don't like being told what to do," the brat complained, but went to the window anyway. "This is your world, though. You'd know more about it. And you're not a bad sort, if you swear on your honor and everything."

How naïve! As if swearing on one's honor was enough to guarantee anything - well, in Arthur's case it was, but the politicians his father banked and invested for often weren't as honorable as they claimed to be. "You ought to be more careful," Arthur said, although he wasn't sure why he was bothering to give this twit advice. "Honor isn't something you can just - " But then Arthur fell silent, suddenly, because the boy had pulled the curtains open.

He'd _thrown_ them open. And Arthur saw - Arthur saw -

 _So he_ is _wearing leaves_ , Arthur thought, as moonlight flooded the room. _And that's... all he's wearing._

Arthur - for possibly the first time in his life, barring that incident when he was seven and he'd fallen off a tree and concussed himself - for the first time since then, anyway, he felt dizzy.

He'd never... seen someone like this. Someone so strange, so luminous - like they weren't even real. Like they might not even, in this bewitching light, be human.

What Arthur saw by the window was a boy, yes, a boy who seemed Arthur's age, and whose height was also comparable to Arthur's, except that he was more slender of build. But that was where his ordinariness ended.

His limbs were long and gangly, but still possessed of a fey, animal grace. There were miles and miles of moonlit skin, covered - in intricate, wrangling and all too occasional patches - by a cloth of leaves. Leaves interwoven with twine, or so Arthur deduced, because it didn't make sense that those leaves would stick so cooperatively to human skin. Arthur thought he glimpsed a glimmer of tree-juice, too, sparkling like stardust on the boy's thighs and belly. It certainly wasn't decent, to gad about so scantily clad. The boy's ears were larger than normal, and had little elfin peaks to them; his hair was a wilderness of dark, wet-seeming curls, each polished by the moon until it shone. His face was triangular and stubborn and somehow very vital, very vibrant and unthinking and complete, like the faces of infants or madmen or people in love.

 _Maybe he really is an alien from a distant star_ , Arthur's stunned psyche reflected, for a moment.

"What?" He eyed Arthur warily. "Why're you gawking at me like that?"

"Nothing," croaked Arthur, and wondered why his voice was inexplicably hoarse. He cleared his throat. "This - this star you come from. It doesn't happen to have men in coats, does it? Great big white coats? With pills in their pockets?"

"The pirates wear black, not white. And if by pills you mean crackers - of course they carry those. What else would they feed the parrots with?"

"You're not a parrot, are you?"

"What?" The boy looked startled, then amused. "Ha. Don't be daft."

 _You're the one who's daft!_ Arthur wanted to shout, but just then, he saw a quick, black shape flit from one corner of the room to another.

"There!" yelled the boy, lunging at it. It slipped out of his grasp, and made its way - like a panicked, cornered beast - to Arthur. "There it is!" the boy cried. "That's my shadow! Catch it! Catch it, Arthur!"

How did he know Arthur's - no, never mind. He'd been spying on Arthur for how long, exactly? Something - possibly Arthur's polo-sharpened instincts - made Arthur pounce on the shape as it fled his way. There was a brief struggle, in which Arthur was very sure that this 'shadow' was simply a small animal wrapped in cloth - a pet of some sort - but then he had it pinned to the bed, and it was...

It was...

Not an animal.

Nor a cloth.

Nor an animal wrapped in a cloth.

It was - oh, God. Arthur couldn't believe it, but it was - it really _was_ -

It was a shadow.

"I can't believe this," Arthur said, faintly.

"Good job, my man!" The boy appeared at Arthur's side, as swift as a djinn, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Now all I have to do is slip it on."

Arthur gaped. The thing in his hands... was silky, gauzy, but oddly insubstantial at the same time; it seemed to have a life of its own, because it tried to stretch desperately away from Arthur's grasp, somehow giving the impression of being bedraggled and tired and put-upon. "I don't think it wants to go back to you," Arthur said, and marveled at what he was saying.

"It's as sullen as usual," the shadow's owner huffed. "Silly thing. Like it's actually good for anything, without me. Oi!" he said to the shadow, and Arthur watched with wide eyes as he shook his finger at it. "Listen to me. I know that you like this world, but we don't belong here. You're coming with me, and you're _staying_ with me. I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

The shadow slumped.

"Here," said the boy to Arthur, "hold it for me, would you? I'm just going to - " So saying, the boy plopped down on the bed in front of Arthur, stretched out one of his ridiculously naked legs, and began to slip the shadow on as if it were a stocking. First one leg, then another; Arthur watched with the distinct feeling of disconnection one usually felt in the midst of a very surreal, very unreal dream. Maybe he truly was dreaming. Although he'd never dreamt of leaf-clad boys, before.

Finally, only a little bit of the shadow remained in Arthur's hands, and he released it so that the boy could pull it up the rest of the way.

"There," said the alien - for Arthur was sure he was an alien, at this point - and sighed in relief. "Now I won't look like a fool when I go back to Neverlot. And shadows are very useful, you know. Especially when you're flying aboveground, and you're looking for a place to land; a shadow's shape on the surface can show you whether the ground is rocky or smooth. It's a safety requirement in Neverlot, I can tell you that. Wouldn't want to try a landing on the Salty Cliffs and splitting open my head!"

Flying. Cliffs. Neverlot. "You're splitting _my_ head," Arthur muttered. "With a headache."

"Am I?" The boy leaned very close, apparently at peace with Arthur now that he knew Arthur wasn't a shadow-thief. "I'm sorry. I woke you up from your nap, didn't I?"

" _Now_ you apologize to me." There it was, again - that scent of water and earth and sun. Arthur felt an odd flush start up in his skin, like a very quiet fever; Arthur wished the imp would just take his bare arms and his bare legs and his animal scent and _go away_. "You break into my house, blame it on me, get me to catch your shadow for you and what do I get? A headache. You haven't even thanked me. It's dishonorable not to thank someone who's helped you, you know."

"I really am sorry." In the moonlight, the boy looked genuinely contrite - but it was a child's contrition, and it was very strange seeing such an expression on a face that was, by all appearances, the same age as Arthur's. "But what should I do to thank you?"

"Well," said Arthur, unaccountably uncomfortable with those wide, earnest eyes gazing into his, "you could just _say_ that you're - "

"Oh!" the boy exclaimed. "I have it! I'll take you with me to Neverlot!"

"Take - what? No! I can't!"

"Well, not tonight, obviously. You have a headache, and nobody can fly with a headache. You're supposed to think happy thoughts."

"Er." Arthur couldn't even begin to unpack the insane implications of that sentence.

"I'll come back," the boy promised. "I swear. Tomorrow night, I'll be here -

just leave your window open for me. I'll come back, and I'll take you with me. You hate it here, anyway, and you're quite quick, aren't you? You'll make a good Lost Boy. You'll like it in Neverlot, trust me."

"Look," said Arthur, feeling that he had to clear this up, "I don't hate it here."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I do _not_! And secondly, I am not lost. And thirdly, I'm not coming with you to your - your star. Neverlot, or whatever it's called. I can't go; I have a duty to stay here."

"What's a duty?" The boy was leaning even closer, now; Arthur could see the moon-limned curve of every fey eyelash.

"A duty," Arthur said, determined not to be distracted by someone's _eyelashes_ , of all things, "is a task you must do without fail, whether it gives you pleasure or not."

The boy made a face. "Sounds like an awful waste of time."

Arthur bristled. "It is not! It's something that must be done for the greater good. Haven't you ever done anything like that?"

"Hm," the alien thought for a moment. "I suppose I have. Like that time I didn't eat the last of the cake, because I thought the younger ones might like it."

Arthur dropped his head onto his hands. "I give up," he said. "I just - give up. Go away."

"All right," said the boy, brightly. "But I'll be back! You won't have to stay in Neverlot if you really don't want to; but you ought to visit, just to make up your mind. I'll take you there."

"Fine," said Arthur, positive that the boy would never return, because Arthur was going to tell the police about this and, alien or not, this wild creature with silver eyelashes and sandalwood skin wouldn't be coming here to distract him again. "If you come again, I'll go with you. All right? Just.. go. _Now_." And then, realizing that he had to be absolutely clear with this dunce: "By yourself," he added.

"It's a promise, then!" The boy hopped off the bed, landing lightly on his feet, and cocked his head as he looked down at Arthur. "I'll give you a thimble," he said, "as proof of our promise. So you know that I'll return."

"I don't need a - " Arthur began, but stopped at the stubborn jut of the boy's jaw. "Oh, all right," he conceded, feeling as though he were indulging a toddler that was absorbed in some arcane childhood game. "Give me your thimble, then." He held out his hand.

But the boy didn't put anything in Arthur's hand. Ignoring it completely, he instead reached out a palm of his own to cup Arthur's face - and Arthur, startled by the sudden brush of a calloused thumb against his lips, did nothing at all as the boy swooped down for a kiss.

It was - this was - what -

"Mmph," said Arthur, for the second time that night. So stunned was he by this particular development that he just sat there, in the midst of the soft clinging of mouth against mouth, and felt the quiet fever of before return with a fiery, almost terrifying force. His cheeks flushed; his breath burned; he felt himself go _red_.

The boy pulled away, and Arthur stared at him as one might at a wizard, or a sorcerer, or someone that had just performed the most incomprehensible magic.

"What did you just do?" Arthur asked, weakly. It seemed unfair, somehow, that Arthur should be so affected when all the boy wore was a look of calm satisfaction - the sort of satisfaction that Arthur was more used to equating with the signing of official documents.

"Gave you a thimble, o' course. That's how you people make promises, here, isn't it? I've seen it done lots of times. Flying past windows and things. When you leave, you have to give the other person a thimble. Just to prove that you'll return. Everyone here does it. Nobody in Neverlot does, though." Then, a trace of doubt crept into the boy's voice. "I didn't do it wrong, did I?"

"No," said Arthur, still feeling quite disembodied and feverish. "That's. I don't. I think you did all right."

"Oh, good! I'll be going, then. Remember, keep your window open!"

"Wait," called Arthur - suddenly certain that he wouldn't be able to call the police, after this, and that he had to tell this boy not to come again, had to, _had_ to, because if he ever came back - "What's your name?" he found himself asking, instead.

"Merlin," grinned the boy. He was perched on the window-sill, now, between the billowing curtains. "See you tomorrow, then?"

"No," Arthur said, "you can't - " But the boy was gone.

He'd vanished, just like that, between one heartbeat and the next. And Arthur seemed to be having a lot of those, right now. A great many heartbeats, following quick upon each other, like lemmings jumping off the Salty Cliffs.

Arthur leaped out of bed, rushing to the window and looking outside - but his strange visitor - Merlin, as he'd called himself - was nowhere to be seen. Not on the lawns, not on the walls, climbing down as surely anyone _had_ to. He was just... gone.

"Can't be," Arthur murmured, eyes scanning the grounds. "He talked about flying, but he couldn't have been..." He couldn't have been serious. Could he?

 _He was serious about the shadow_ , Arthur's brain pointed out, obligingly.  _Didn't that turn out to be true?_

Arthur's knees gave way. He sagged against the window-sill, with only his chin propped up on it, and felt the curtains brush his ears.

His blood was pounding in his veins. The night air was cool, but he felt feverish, still...

Everything real, everything practical, everything solid and true and grown- up - all of it had washed away after this single meeting with Merlin. All of Arthur's plans about Round Tables and boardrooms seemed suddenly insubstantial; even his father's scowl, or Arthur's responsibilities, or his national score, or his inheritance. All those things felt very far away, like watery illusions of another world, as if they were the things that weren't real. As if, somehow, that leaf-clad boy and his thimble-kiss were more real than any of them.

 _It's just because you haven't been kissed before_ , Arthur's mind supplied again. _That's why you're all addle-brained. Calm down. Think about it. This probably wasn't real._ Of course it wasn't. It couldn't be. Arthur must've had some sort of nervous fit, or a bout of hysteria, like the ones they talked about in the Medical seminars at Eton. He was merely under mental strain; his duties weighed heavily upon him, and it had been too long since he had last breathed the clean country air of the Pendragon summer cottage. Yes, that was it. He ought to get some sleep. And when he woke up tomorrow, he'd be fine again. Nobody - not Mr. Pendragon, not Morgana, not Gwen, not Gaius - nobody needed to know that he'd gone barmy for a night.

That was the logical conclusion. The reasonable conclusion. Because if what Merlin said was true, then everything Arthur believed - about Duty and Honor and Work - was false. And _that_ was unbearable.

Nevertheless, Arthur couldn't bring himself to move from the window; despite the fact that his skin grew chilly and pebbled in the midnight breeze, and despite the fact that Merlin, being the hallucination of a troubled mind, couldn't possibly return.

_That's how you people make promises, here, isn't it?_

"Shut up," Arthur growled into his arm, burying his head in its crook. "I don't want you to come back, anyway..."

And so, Arthur finally fell asleep, loose-limbed at last against the window-sill, with the stars shining above him, and one star in particular - the second to the right - shining brighter than ever before.

 

* * *

**fin.**

 

**Author's Note:**

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